- Netherlands: Court bans Grok from generating fake nudes, threatens €100K daily penalties
Source: Politico
“An Amsterdam court on Thursday ordered Elon Musk’s Grok to stop generating non-consensual nude pictures and child sexual abuse material. The company xAI, which owns the artificial intelligence chatbot, is ordered to pay damages of €100,000 per day for each day it fails to comply, up to a maximum of €10 million. … The platform took steps to restrict features in January after Grok was found to be generating [fake] pictures of real people in bikinis or nude. Estimates have said that around 3 million pictures were generated in 11 days.” (03/26/26)
https://www.politico.eu/article/netherlands-grok-x-ban-generative-pictures-penalties
- Appeals court pauses orders restricting feds’ use of chemical weapons on Portland protesters
Source: KATU 2 News
“An appeals court has paused lower court rulings in Oregon that restricted federal officers’ use of tear gas during protests at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland. A three-judge panel at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Trump administration’s request for temporary administrative stays in two cases on Wednesday. The 2-1 decision came from two judges appointed by President Donald Trump, with the dissenting judge appointed by former President Joe Biden. One of the lawsuits was filed by the ACLU of Oregon on behalf of protesters and freelance journalists, while the other was brought by residents of an affordable housing complex across from the Portland ICE building. The lawsuits argue that federal officers’ use of chemical and projectile munitions has violated the rights of protesters and residents.” (03/26/26)
- Russia: Moscow’s mobile internet restored as Saint Petersburg goes offline
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Restrictions that had left Moscow residents without mobile internet for three weeks – with the Kremlin citing ‘security’ – were lifted on Wednesday while St Petersburg endured a third consecutive day of outages. Some fear an attempt to isolate Russians from information from the outside world amid a parallel government effort to ramp up digital surveillance.” (03/26/26)
- AUSA sues Hegseth, Chavez-DeRemer over prayer services
Source: CBC News [Canadian state media]
“Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, hosting his first monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon since the Iran war began, prayed on Wednesday for American bullets to hit their targets. … The services proceeded even after a lawsuit was filed Monday over such gatherings by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The advocacy group filed a similar suit against the Labour Department, where Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer also hosts monthly prayer gatherings inspired by Hegseth. The nonprofit group, in existence since 1948, said both officials were ‘abusing the power of their government positions and taxpayer-funded resources to impose their preferred religion on federal workers.'” (03/26/26)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hegseth-religious-services-prayer-lawsuit-9.7142921
- Transgender Women Athletes Banned From Olympics By New IOC Policy On Female Eligibility
Source: NDTV
“Transgender women athletes are now excluded from the Olympics after the IOC agreed to a new eligibility policy on Thursday which aligns with U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order on women’s sports ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games. ‘Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females,’ the International Olympic Committee said, ‘determined on the basis of a one-time SRY gene screening.'” (03/26/26)
- Mace eyes break with GOP on Iran war powers
Source: Axios
“Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) told Axios she will ‘most likely’ vote for House Democrats’ resolution to constrain President Trump from waging war with Iran the next time it comes up for a vote. The vote is symbolic — even if the measure passed both chambers, Trump could veto it — but Mace’s support puts the House one step closer to a major rebuke of the administration’s Middle East operations. Mace emerged as a suddenly fierce critic of the Iran war this week, declaring Wednesday that she will vote against funding further operations in the region. … A war powers resolution forced to the floor earlier this month was rejected in a 212-219 vote, with four House Democrats breaking away from their leadership and voting against the measure. But most if not all of those Democrats are poised to flip the next time their party leadership forces a war powers vote, Axios reported on Tuesday.” (03/26/26)
- Coinbase, Fannie Mae bring crypto-backed mortgages to homebuyers
Source: CoinDesk
“U.S.-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN) is working with Fannie Mae-approved mortgage firm Better Home & Finance Holding Co. (BETR), to enable crypto holders to use their digital assets as down payment collateral when buying a home. The mortgage is structured as a conforming loan backed by Fannie Mae, meaning it carries the same protections and standards as traditional mortgages, according to a press release on Thursday. Borrowers pledge bitcoin or the USDC stablecoin as collateral to fund their down payment, allowing them to keep their assets intact and avoid creating a taxable event by spending them. In the case of USDC, they can keep earnings rewards, Coinbase said.” (03/26/26)
- Pro-Iran protesters in Philadelphia: “For every US soldier that comes home in a casket, we cheer”
Source: New York Post
“Vile Philadelphia protestors cheered as a masked ringleader celebrated the death of US service members in shocking new footage – before calling for Hamas rockets to explode across American homes. ‘For every US soldier that returns home in a casket, we cheer,’ the provocateur shouted outside Philadelphia’s city hall, according to footage filmed by local conservative activist Frankie Scales. ‘Until we have done everything in our power to bring the United States to its knees, let us not lose sight of the enemy,’ the man yelled, with the crowd cheering loudly at each hateful invocation.” [editor’s note: There’s an easy way to end the cheering … bring the troops home. “Problem” solved – TLK] (03/26/26)
- British Airways to reward pilots for cutting fuel as airlines tackle higher costs
Source: CNBC
“British Airways is offering a financial incentive to its pilots who reduce their planes’ fuel consumption, as the U.S.-Iran war continues to plague travel and drive up jet fuel prices. The airline’s pilots would have to cut their aircraft’s carbon dioxide emissions by 60,000 tons more than their 2025 levels to receive a bonus worth 1% of their base pay, according to documents viewed by Bloomberg News and reported on Tuesday. … The initiative comes as global airlines continue to struggle with soaring jet fuel prices amid the U.S. war with Iran. Iran’s blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of global oil supply passes, has caused prices to surge to over $100 per barrel.” (03/26/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/26/british-airways-reward-pilots-cutting-fuel-costs-climb.html
- Wikipedia bans AI-generated articles
Source: The Verge
“Wikipedia will no longer allow editors to write or rewrite articles using AI. The update, which was added to Wikipedia’s guidelines late last week, cites the tendency for AI-written articles to violate ‘several of Wikipedia’s core content policies’ as the reason for the ban. The change applies to the English version of Wikipedia and will still allow editors to use AI in certain scenarios. That includes using large language models to ‘suggest basic copyedits’ to their writing, but only if it ‘does not introduce content of its own.’ Editors can also use AI to translate articles from another language’s Wikipedia into English. However, they still must follow the site’s rules on LLM-assisted translations, which require editors to have enough knowledge of the original language to confirm the accuracy of the translation.” (03/26/26)
https://www.theverge.com/tech/901461/wikipedia-ai-generated-article-ban
- EU targets Snapchat over child safety
Source: SFGate
“European Union regulators are investigating Snapchat over concerns the platform isn’t doing enough to protect kids and exposing them to risks such as increased vulnerability to child predators or recruitment by criminals. The 27-nation EU’s executive Commission said Thursday it was opening a formal investigation into Snapchat under the bloc’s sweeping rule book known as the Digital Services Act that’s designed to [censor the Internet]. The European Commission said that Snapchat requires users to be at least 13 to use the platform but it suspected that the company’s ‘age assurance’ system is ‘insufficient’ at keeping them off. Regulators said the platform is also exposing teens to inappropriate content because it’s not properly checking whether a user is under 17. And they worried that age checking systems aren’t preventing adults from posing as minors.” (03/26/26)
- Black Sea: Turkey-operated tanker carrying Russian oil struck by naval drone
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“A water-borne drone struck a Turkish-operated crude oil tanker that had departed Russia, causing an explosion in the Black Sea near Istanbul’s Bosphorus strait on Thursday, Turkey’s transportation minister said. The incident, one of several in recent months involving Western-sanctioned vessels heading to or from Russian ports, occurred in the early hours, minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu told broadcaster Kanal 24. … Other commercial tankers carrying crude oil from Russian ports have been targeted over the past year by what some experts suggest is a state-sponsored sabotage campaign using limpet mines and other explosives. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for these attacks. ” (03/26/26)
- Caribbean: US-based pirates murder four
Source: Yahoo! News
“U.S. Southern Command said it [murdered] four men in a strike on an alleged drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean on Wednesday, the latest attack by the Trump administration in its aggressive crackdown on narcotics trafficking. The Trump administration has [murdered] at least 163 people and destroyed at least 47 vessels it accuses of trafficking drugs in international waters since Sept. 2, according to a Pentagon posture statement and subsequent SOUTHCOM releases. Wednesday’s strike was the third publicly reported since the U.S. military began its war with Iran.” (03/26/26)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/u-kills-4-strike-alleged-030204153.html
- French court hands Islam scholar Tariq Ramadan 18-year jail term for rape
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“A court in Paris has sentenced prominent Islam scholar Tariq Ramadan to 18 years in jail for raping three women, two years after he was given a jail term for a separate rape offence in Switzerland. The French rape case unfolded in 2017, when two of the three women came forward during the Me Too campaign against sexual abuse and harassment. Ramadan, a 63-year-old former professor of Islamic studies at St Antony’s College in Oxford, did not attend the trial in Paris, although he has always denied the charges. His lawyers said he was being treated in the Swiss city of Geneva for multiple sclerosis and condemned the trial as a farce. Judge Corinne Goetzmann told the court that a warrant had been issued for Ramadan’s arrest, however Switzerland does not have an extradition treaty with its neighbour..” (03/26/26)
- Hungary: Regime Files Charges Against Prominent Journalist for Alleged Espionage
Source: US News & World Report
“Hungary’s pro-Russian government has launched criminal charges against a prominent investigative journalist whom it accuses of conducting spying activities in coordination with a foreign country, a minister said on Thursday. The journalist, Szabolcs Panyi, focuses on national security and intelligence reporting and has published extensive reports detailing Russian influence operations in Hungary as well as the relationship between Moscow and Hungary’s foreign minister. Panyi denies the allegations, and an outlet Panyi writes for has accused Hungary’s government of ‘resorting to authoritarian tactics’ to discredit the journalist and his findings.” (03/26/26)
- OpenAI drops plans to release an adult chatbot
Source: Engadget
“OpenAI has ‘indefinitely’ abandoned plans to release an a erotic chatbot for adults following concerns from employees and investors, the company confirmed to The Financial Times. Plans for such a feature, first announced in October 2025 for release in December last year, had already been delayed while company debated whether to release it all. It’s the second app OpenAI has decided to shelf this week, after announcing on Tuesday that it was shutting down its Sora video generator. The adult-oriented chatbot, reportedly called ‘Citron mode,’ is now on hold with no planned release date. The company reportedly had difficulty training models that previously avoided erotic content and also removing illegal behavior like bestiality or incest, two people familiar with the matter told the FT.” [editor’s note: An erotic chatbot engages in conversation, which by definition cannot (at least in the US) constitute “illegal behavior” – TLK] (03/26/26)
https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-drops-plans-to-release-an-adult-chatbot-113121190.html
- NY: Maduro lawyer argues against US blocking funding for drug trafficking case defense
Source: SFGate
“Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife were back in a New York courtroom Thursday as they seek to have their drug trafficking indictments thrown out over a geopolitical dispute over legal fees. The hearing opened with the defense and prosecution arguing over whether Maduro should be allowed to use Venezuelan government funds to pay for his defense. The defense has insisted that the U.S. is violating the deposed leader’s constitutional rights by blocking government money from being used for his legal costs. Maduro lawyer Barry Pollack contended that if Maduro got public defenders, investigating and preparing his case would sap legal resources meant for people who can’t afford their own attorneys, and that doesn’t make sense in ‘a case where you have someone other than the U.S. taxpayer standing ready, willing and able to fund that defense.’ Prosecutor Kyle Wirshba argued against letting Maduro use Venezuelan government funds.” (03/26/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/nicol-s-maduro-heads-back-to-a-us-court-22115789.php
- EU Parliament backs US trade deal — with strings attached
Source: Politico
“The European Parliament supported two legal proposals Thursday to implement the trade agreement reached last year between the EU and the U.S. by a wide margin, with amendments aimed at ensuring the Trump administration stands by the deal. In a plenary vote, lawmakers backed the measures — to scrap EU duties on U.S. industrial products — with a wide majority. Parliament negotiators will likely meet as soon as April 13 with EU country representatives to start negotiating a final compromise that could then enter into force.” (03/26/26)
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-parliament-backs-us-trade-deal-with-strings-attached
- A California Jury Tries to Repeal the 21st Century
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“MySpace kicked off an era in which nearly two out of three humans on the planet use social media platforms to connect with others, share opinions and content, and, yes, sometimes scroll obsessively through everything on offer. You or I may or may not like social media. You or I may or may not use social media. And, even though it’s pretty much the unique distinguishing development of the 21st century (everything else, including perpetual war, is just variation on eternal themes), you and I don’t HAVE to use social media. Nor was K.G.M. forced to use social media. But on March 25, a California jury awarded her $6 million in ‘damages’ — half ‘compensatory’ and half punitive — from Google (which owns YouTube) and Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram), because she allegedly suffers from anxiety and depression and blames social media for those problems.” (03/26/26)
- The New Forever War in Iran Keeps the Dog Wagging
Source: Reason
by Katherine Mangu-Ward“Here’s a good rule of thumb, both for understanding foreign policy and also for life in general: When someone offers a bunch of rapid-fire and mutually irreconcilable justifications for a controversial decision, they’re not telling you the whole story. William Shakespeare might have invoked letting slip the dogs of war to describe the unleashing of violence, but these days we just ‘wag the dog.’ Popularized by Our American Cousin — the play being performed at Ford’s Theatre when President Abraham Lincoln was shot — the phrase took on an explicitly political meaning after the ripped-from-the-headlines 1997 film Wag the Dog. In that otherwise pretty awful movie, a fabricated military conflict was used to distract voters from a presidential sex scandal. Since then, the term has become shorthand for the idea that leaders sometimes use military action to divert attention from problems at home.” (03/26/26)
- In Iran, Russia Pays America Back for Aiding Ukraine
Source: The American Conservative
by Doug Bandow“American officials and commentators are outraged that Moscow would stoop so low, helping another country to — cue manifold expressions of fury and outrage — kill U.S. military personnel. (Some have also claimed that Russia provided intelligence to the Yemeni Houthis targeting Western merchantmen and American warships in the Red Sea, and, less credibly, paid the Taliban to kill Americans in Afghanistan.) Such critics of Moscow are like Captain Renault, who famously discovered gambling occurring at Rick’s Café Américain in the movie Casablanca. Shocking! Shut the establishment! Those demanding action offer few helpful suggestions, preferring, for instance, to call on the administration to ‘respond with clarity and resolve.’ Meaning what, precisely? Perhaps provide financial and military support to Moscow’s adversary, even planning the latter’s battlefield operations. Oh, wait! That is what Washington has been doing for years.” (03/26/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/in-iran-russia-pays-america-back-for-aiding-ukraine/
- Trump’s American Tragedy
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Brad Pearce“The Israeli-American attack on Iran has been defined more than anything by the nonsensical nature of the messaging, with statements listing any number of potential goals. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump, always eccentric and erratic, has been ranting about an endless variety of topics, with each day bringing about new unhinged statements. It is as if we have watched the White House become a Greek tragedy before our very eyes, with Donald Trump in the role of a mad king. This represents an incredible fall for a man who defeated all of his opponents and orchestrated the greatest comeback in American political history. However, his advanced age and hubris seem to have got the best of him. Trump must on some level know that his attack on Iran was a strategic disaster, hence his spiraling behavior.” (03/26/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/trumps-american-tragedy
- The Age of Asymmetric Warfare Is Here, and the West Is Not Ready
Source: Foreign Policy
by Aliona Hlivco & Dalibor Rohac“The Trump administration has been roundly criticized for a lack of clarity in its war aims and strategy. What is perhaps even more striking is the lack of imagination, by both the civilian and the military leadership, in grappling with the prospect of countering asymmetric drone warfare. The economics of the drone war are currently lopsided by several orders of magnitude. Shooting down $20,000 drones with a limited stock of multimillion-dollar interceptors is unsustainable when the United States faces a comparatively puny adversary, such as Iran; it becomes completely unthinkable in a situation in which the U.S. military would have to fight off a larger adversary with a massive drone supply, such as China or Russia.” (03/26/26)
- Defending (and demanding) democracy
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“This month, three democracy-tracking organizations released analyses of the state of political, press, and personal freedoms around the world. The title of one report, ‘The Growing Shadow of Autocracy,’ sums up a shared view about backsliding on all these fronts. Yet the data and perspectives also reveal progress – especially in the enduring and widespread appeal of democratic ideals and values. Looking back at 2025, the Sweden-based Variety of Democracies Institute, known as V-Dem, counts 44 countries worldwide that it says are ‘autocratizing,’ including the United States. In particular for the U.S., V-Dem cites recent ‘attacks on the press, academia, civil liberties, and dissenting voices.’ On the other hand, the Dartmouth College-based Bright Line Watch finds that declining views of American democracy from earlier in 2025 have ‘largely stabilized’, and public opinion now shows ‘mild optimism.'” (03/25/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0325/Defending-and-demanding-democracy
- India, the Jigsaw Piece that Didn’t Fit
Source: Isonomia Quarterly
by Jens Norby“It is reasonable to imagine a wave of unease washing over the members of the Imperial Legislative Council in Delhi on 18 March 1919. The council had just rushed through the passing of what would be known as the Rowlatt Act, named after the chair of its producing committee, which extended the wartime powers of the police to make use of normally extra-judicial measures to curb civil unrest. Indian soldiers played a decisive role in the British imperial forces, and there was a widespread expectation that India ought to become more self-governing as part of the settlement in the postwar period. However …” (03/26/26)
https://isonomiamag.substack.com/p/india-the-jigsaw-piece-that-didnt
- An American View of Britain’s Constitutional Tragedy
Source: Law & Liberty
by Michael Lucchese“Hereditary aristocrats may seem alien to Americans, but their removal from the House of Lords marks a sad moment for constitutionalism.” (03/26/26)
https://lawliberty.org/an-american-view-of-britains-constitutional-tragedy/
- Who are you?
Source: Freedom and Flourishing
by Winton Bates“My main qualification for talking about personal identity is that I have been around for long enough to have thought quite a lot about my own identity. I hope that what I have to say will interest other people. In any case, writing this podcast script should also help me to remember what I have learned about myself. Rather than meander through the circuitous history of my thinking, I will focus here on what I now consider to be a sensible approach to the topic. I will begin by discussing the most superficial aspects of personal identity and will end up considering whether your identity would be retained if your consciousness was uploaded into a machine.” (03/26/26)
https://www.freedomandflourishing.com/2026/03/who-are-you.html
- The Most Dangerous Country: Annals of an Empire in Free Fall
Source: TomDispatch
by David Bromwich“The joint US-Israeli killing of Iranian leaders on February 28th marked the second time in a year that the United States had used negotiations as a decoy for a surprise attack. On the pattern of Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, our own invasion of Iraq in 2003, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the U.S. under President Trump has indeed launched a criminal war of aggression. The run-up to the war, however, followed a discernible pattern. Throughout the months preceding it, the Trump administration was testing the American public’s tolerance for just such an adventure. First came the drone killings of alleged ‘narco-terrorists’ on boats in the Caribbean Sea; then, the kidnapping of the President of Venezuela; and finally, the seizure of oil tankers said to originate from Venezuela (an act of piracy by any other name).” (03/26/26)
- What Gives Something Value?
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Zachary A Collier“It’s spring, which is bad news if you have pollen allergies, but is good news if you are planning to buy or sell a home: this is typically the busiest season for home sales. If you are buying a home or selling a home, the concept of value is one that is very important to keep in mind. Why is one buyer willing to offer more than another for the same house? Or why would a seller be willing to lower the price of their home? Everyone places different values on goods, and the same person can even place different values on the same good under different circumstances. But what gives something value, and why does it matter?” (03/26/26)
- Investigating FISA abuses in Crossfire Hurricane
Source: The Volokh Conspiracy
by Stewart Baker“The nation is close to marking the tenth anniversary of the discredited Crossfire Hurricane investigation, which saw the FBI and Justice Department seeking a FISA intercept against Carter Page by relying on false news stories and a partisan oppo research dossier. These days, nobody defends the Carter Page warrant process, but ten years later we still haven’t figured out how bad the abuse was. In fact, just last week we learned that Carter Page was not the only U.S. political figure subjected to a dubious FISA surveillance.” (03/26/26)
https://reason.com/volokh/2026/03/26/investigating-fisa-abuses-in-crossfire-hurricane/
- A war by any other name is still a war
Source: The Hill
by Don Wolfensberger“‘Is it an earthquake or simply a shock? Is it the good turtle soup or merely a mock?’ Those opening lines from Frank Sinatra’s 1962 hit song ‘At Long Last Love’ came to mind when President Trump parried with reporters on March 13 over how to characterize the U.S.-Israeli aerial bombardments of Iran. Trump called it a ‘little excursion.’ Some thought he meant to say incursion. But when a reporter pressed him and asked, ‘which is it, a war or an excursion?’ Trump stuck to his semantical guns and hedged: ‘Well, it’s both. It’s an excursion that will keep us out of a war, and the war is going to be — for them it’s a war, for us it turned out to be easier than we thought.’ … The president’s semantic juggling over whether to call our current military operation a war or an excursion cannot gloss over that we are already at war with Iran.” (03/26/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/5800394-trump-war-excursion-iran/
- The Declaration’s Lost Moral World
Source: Law & Liberty
by John O McGinnis“The Declaration of Independence was both performative and expressive. It announced the United States as a separate entity from Britain. It also articulated the core political premises on which the new nation was established. The commemoration of its 250th anniversary will mostly focus on its first function, because a nation, like a person, most readily celebrates its birth. But especially at our time of division and polarization, a renewed focus on our founding principle has never been more urgent.” (03/26/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-declarations-lost-moral-world/
- “Israel Has A Right To Exist” Is Psychopathic Bullshit
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“As soon as you accept that Israel must exist as a ‘Jewish state’ no matter what, you are accepting that there will never be peace in the middle east. Because Israel cannot exist as it is without nonstop violence. Show a Zionist a map where Israel does not exist as a Jewish state and a map where the entire middle east is on fire except for Israel, and then ask them to pick a future, and they’ll pick the second one every time. That’s the worldview that’s baked into Zionism. The worldview you’re not supposed to bring up in mainstream discourse about the Zionist ideology. You’re not supposed to mention the demented murderousness inherent in the premise that Israel must exist as a Jewish ethnonationalist state no matter how many people need to be killed in order to make that happen. But that’s the reality.” (03/26/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/03/26/israel-has-a-right-to-exist-is-psychopathic-bullshit/
- “Simple” popular vote plan would mean chaos for 2028 election
Source: USA Today
“The Commonwealth of Virginia is poised to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement already joined by 17 other states and Washington, DC, in an attempt to effectively eliminate the Electoral College. Both the state senate and state house approved the measure, and the bill is now awaiting the governor’s signature. Electoral College opponents will celebrate, but they shouldn’t. Americans do not realize what is about to hit them if the national popular vote becomes reality.” (03/26/26)
- What Trump’s Iran “Excursion” Cost US Allies
Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker“In his recent social media diatribes, Donald Trump has complained that our allies are ungrateful for the war he has initiated against Iran. He is angered that they aren’t anxious to send in their military forces to win a war that he claims is already won. Trump also doesn’t seem to think it matters that he never consulted, or even warned, any US allies, with the notable exception of Israel. To anyone not in the Trump cult, these complaints qualify as batshit crazy. Trump’s war is a massive whack to economies across the world. These countries are not grateful for an economic hit that is equivalent to a massive weather disaster or serious pandemic.” (03/26/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/03/26/what-trumps-iran-excursion-cost-us-allies/
- Pentagon Wants It to Be Illegal for Reporters to Ask “Unauthorized” Questions
Source: The Intercept
by Seth Stern“A judge last week struck down the Pentagon’s restrictions on journalists seeking ‘unauthorized’ information, siding with the New York Times in its lawsuit against the government. In response, the Pentagon on Monday added some meaningless window dressing and essentially reissued the same restrictions. The administration pledged to ‘immediately’ appeal the decision on the original policy, and on Tuesday, the Times filed a motion to compel the administration to comply with the judge’s order. As alarming as the Pentagon’s antics are, the Times’ lawsuit is not the only case about whether reporters have the right to ask questions. It’s not even the only one in the news this week.” (03/26/26)
https://theintercept.com/2026/03/26/pentagon-reporters-first-amendment/
- The Assisted Suicide of Lofty State and Local Taxes
Source: RealClearPolitics
by Rob Arnott“We get the government we choose to elect, hence the government we deserve. Voting for ever-higher punitive taxes on the rich is arguably a form of civic suicide. Consider that a wealthy New Yorker can get a raise of almost 40% just by moving. That’s right. If moving eliminates a 14.8% top state and local tax rate, our top-tier taxpayer gets a 36% raise, not a 14.8% raise, by leaving. It’s doubtful if any of our city and state leaders have done this math, but it’s shocking. Mamdani wants to take the top rate up another 2%, if not by the state then by the city, which would mean that our rich neighbor can get a 42% raise.” (03/26/26)
- The Real Cause of US Polarization: Class War, Not Culture War
Source: Common Dreams
by Gerald Sussman“At this year’s National Football League Super Bowl, the Trump regime could not resist politicizing the event by attacking the halftime performance of Bad Bunny, a celebration of Puerto Rican musical culture conducted entirely in the Spanish language. President Donald Trump endorsed an alternative country western streamed halftime program of Kid Rock, which was dedicated to the conservative icon Charlie Kirk. It was the president and his party inciting the MAGA base to campaign for congressional Republicans. The two shows represent two radically different cultural streams in America, roughly approximating the struggle over ethnic, gender, and racial representation in public life. On a more material level, however, the unfulfilled day to day needs of working people caught up in this ideological divide suggests that rhetorical claims about the culture wars are not grounded in the quotidian realities and material demands of most people.” (03/26/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/class-war-not-culture-war
- Texas Republicans Are Moving From Demonizing Muslims to Stripping Away Their Rights
Source: The UnPopulist
by Steve Chapman“Texas, as we’ve always been told, doesn’t do things on a small scale, and Republicans there are not about to be outdone when it comes to inciting fear and loathing of Muslims. Gov. Greg Abbott, now in his third term and practically guaranteed to win a fourth in November, has made certain that no one can outdo him on this issue.” (03/26/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/texas-republicans-are-moving-from
- Still More Useful Maxims
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie“This is my fifth group of the many short principles that help clarify reasoning, decision-making, or analysis. I am featuring some of them in a series of posts, expositing a few of them each time. Some of these are insights into the worlds of public service and business.” 903/26/26)
- Why ICE Is Allowed to Impersonate Law Enforcement
Source: Wired
by Vittoria Elliott“In the early hours of February 26, agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) arrived at Columbia University student housing. According to the school, the immigration officers told campus safety staff that they were police officers looking for a missing 5-year-old child. But once in the building, agents knocked on the dorm-room door of Elmina ‘Ellie’ Aghayeva, a student from Azerbaijan. When her roommate opened the door, agents quickly detained Aghayeva. … Columbia’s policy is to not allow federal agents onto nonpublic areas of the campus without a judicial warrant. Most immigration arrests, however, are based on administrative warrants, which do not require a judge’s sign-off. So how had ICE gotten onto university property? In the hours after Aghayeva’s detention, as students and faculty rallied against DHS, it became clear: ICE had lied. And, as it turns out, that’s (mostly) legal.” (03/26/26)
- “Things are going to get worse”: Swing-state mothers sour on government
Source: Semafor
by David Weigel“The voters most keen to talk with political reporters are, typically, extremely engaged in politics. Most people will never attend a political rally in person, and most hang up when pollsters call. So it was useful and instructive to spend an evening listening to women who did vote, and had some worries about the country’s direction, but avoided most news. It underscored the challenge that Democrats and Republicans alike face reaching these voters.” (03/26/26)
- Trump Blew it on Immigration
Source: The Contrarian
by Jennifer Rubin“No issue more defined Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns and two terms than promises surrounding illegal immigration, and no sentiment more defined the MAGA movement than vitriolic xenophobia. Getting a close look at what that means to most people seems to have repulsed Americans, thereby breaking Republicans’ grip on the issue. An enormous survey of nearly 5500 Americans (with a margin of error of only +/- 1.49%) from PRRI shows the extent of Americans’ distaste for mass deportation. Trump personally has lost the country. Overall, his approval is at a measly 36 percent (with only 28 percent from independents).” (03/26/26)
https://www.contrariannews.org/p/trump-blew-it-on-immigration
- Does neoliberalism exist?
Source: Cobden Centre
by Anthony J Evans“Over the last decade or so there has been a notable attempt to ‘reclaim’ neoliberalism, pushed by thinktanks and journalists. Strategically, it might make sense to jump on the bandwagon, because part of the battle of ideas is contributing to how terms are understood. Neoliberalism thus becomes a contested brand. You have your museum, we have our bright and optimistic Reddit thread. But there has also been consideration to the term from academics. The common attitude amongst pro-capitalist scholars is to dispute the validity of the concept and ignore most of the literature as being flawed and ill-intentioned.” (03/26/26)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2026/03/does-neoliberalism-exist/
- Weakest case against social media succeeds, and lawyers are now circling
Source: New York Post
by Jonathan Turley“Google once had a motto: ‘Don’t be evil’. In its reorganization in 2015, the motto was changed to ‘Do the right thing’. According to a California jury this week, neither motto stuck. In a historic verdict against both Google and Meta, a jury found that the companies maliciously designed their social media products to addict children, including the plaintiff, who was known only as Kaley or KGM. The jury heard testimony of efforts to ‘target’ young users and feed an addiction to social media and YouTube. The jury awarded Kaley $3 million in compensatory damages divided between Meta (70%) and Google (30%). It then awarded another $3 million in punitive damages. Those damages are nothing to companies worth billions. However, the verdict was like a dinner gong for plaintiffs lawyers.” (03/25/26)
- Criminal Research
Source: Quillette
by Rosalind Arden“European jurists should not seek to arbitrate controversial matters best settled by science.” (03/26/26)
https://quillette.com/2026/03/26/criminal-research-nathan-cofnas-ghent-intelligence/
- Measuring Poverty Correctly Reveals a Hard Truth About the Welfare State
Source: The Daily Economy
by Tyler Turman“When taxes and transfers are included, poverty is much rarer than commonly reported. But what actually reduces it?” (03/26/26)
- How Natural Tradeoff And Failure Components?
Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander“In 2021, I discussed tradeoff vs. failure models of psychiatric conditions, and said that most conditions were probably a mix of both. The new research seems to confirm this: the first genetic component of schizophrenia is a tradeoff: bad insofar as it gives you higher schizophrenia risk, good insofar as it gives you higher educational attainment. Most likely this has something to do with creativity or motivation. The second component is a failure: bad in every way, with no compensating advantage. Most likely this is detrimental mutations in genes for neurogenesis and synaptic pruning.” (03/26/26)
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/how-natural-tradeoff-and-failure
- On energy, China can sit this crisis out. Here’s why.
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Wenjing Wang“The Strait of Hormuz crisis has sparked a new round of debates on the implications for China of the U.S.-Israel war against Iran. Citing China’s reliance on imports of oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) that pass through the largely closed strait, some experts argue that China has limited capabilities to protect its own strategic and commercial interests in the region. But this analysis is based on a false assumption about Chinese energy policy. It is true that China is the world’s largest importer of oil and natural gas. But Beijing has long recognized the importance of energy security and the dangers of relying on a single source of energy imports.” (03/26/26)
- Durham Police and Prosecutors Committed Numerous Crimes in the Duke Lacrosse Case – And Escaped Meaningful Punishment
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by William L Anderson“Through a campaign of lying, aided by the Durham Police Department, the media, and Duke University’s administration and faculty leadership, Durham County District Attorney Michael Nifong was able to ram through false charges of rape, kidnapping, and sexual assault against three Duke University members of the lacrosse team. By June 2006, things looked bleak for the accused, as it became evident that Nifong might well succeed in getting the case to a jury, and then convincing those jurors to convict. Although a year later, the charges would be dismissed and Nifong would be disbarred, such outcomes seemed impossibly far off in the summer of 2006, as the prosecution racked up one victory over another.” (03/26/26)
- We can’t “incarcerate our way out of crime.” But we can deter a lot more of it.
Source: Niskanen Center
by Geg Newburn“The original X post argues that we can incarcerate our way out of crime because large majorities of those responsible for large fractions of serious crime have at least one prior arrest. The necessary implication is that the lever by which to achieve that goal is to incarcerate every arrestee for as long as it takes to reduce their threat level to zero. If the U.S. adopted this strategy tomorrow, we’d take the 5 million people who will be arrested over the next year and put them all in prison for, say, 15-20 years. In year two, arrest totals would drop …. But every year, new criminals begin their careers, some replacement occurs in drug markets, and a large number of low-rate offenders who escaped arrest in year one get caught in year two. The annual arrest numbers would never drop to zero, but the prison population would grow …” (03/26/26)
- Social Media’s Endgame Moment
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen“For the second time in as many days, Meta has been found liable in court for negligence. On Wednesday, a jury in Los Angeles decided that Meta and YouTube, owned by Google, did not warn users of harms related to constant use of their platforms. That followed a jury verdict on Tuesday in New Mexico, fining Meta $375 million for failing to protect adolescent users from predatory adults on its social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. You can look at these rulings a couple of ways. Meta made $60 billion in revenue just last quarter: $375 million is about half a day. Extrapolating that fine to the entire U.S. population, it’s an entire quarter of revenue, which is significant, but that would take a long time and this federal government, which just appointed Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to a council on AI policy, isn’t about to make that happen.” (03/26/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/03/26/social-medias-endgame-moment-meta-facebook-lawsuit-mark-zuckerberg/
- In Kentucky, Impeachment Threatens Judicial Independence
Source: Washington Monthly
by Joshua A Douglas“The state’s legislature, echoing Trump, could oust a judge not for misconduct such as accepting a bribe, but for her opinions from the bench.” (03/26/26)
- The Fifth Column, episode 550
Source: The Fifth Column
“CBS Sunday Morning correspondent and a New York Times bestselling author David Pogue joins the lads to talk Apple, China, AI panic, and whether the company still knows how to invent the future.” (03/26/26)
https://www.wethefifth.com/p/is-apple-still-apple-550-w-david
- Rising, 03/26/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on Elon Musk and X weighing the idea of reducing the influence of foreign accounts pretending to be American.” (03/26/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 03/26/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Showdown: Will Trump Put Troops On The Ground?” (03/26/26)
- Bulwark Takes, 03/26/26
Source: The Bulwark
“No Kings Might Be Bigger than Anyone Expected.” (03/26/26)
- The Libertarian Angle, 03/26/26
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“Inflation and Oil and Gas Prices.” (03/26/26)
- Caplan-Rojas: The Culture Conversation
Source: Bet On It
“Talking *You Have No Right to Your Culture*.” (03/26/26)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/caplan-rojas-the-culture-conversation
- The Daily, 03/26/26
Source: New York Times
“The Airport Meltdown.” (03/26/26)
- Cato Daily Podcast, 03/26/26
Source: Cato Institute
“The Flaws of Rent Ceilings.” (03/26/26)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-podcast/flaws-rent-ceilings
- Political Theater, 03/26/26
Source: Roll Call
“March madness, gladness or sadness? Breaking down the month’s congressional primaries.” (03/26/26)
https://chrt.fm/track/D3F8DG/traffic.megaphone.fm/FISCAL3610385849.mp3
- Underthrow Podcast, 03/26/25
Source: Underthrow
“The Two Most Important Sentences.” (03/26/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/the-two-most-important-sentences
- Radio Atlantic, 03/26/26
Source: The Atlantic
“Meet the New ICE … Same as the old ICE?” 903/26/26)
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/03/ice-dhs-shutdown-markwayne-mullin/686537
- The Permanent Problem, episode 13
Source: Niskanen Center
“The future of innovation, with Andrew McAfee.” (03/26/26)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-future-of-innovation-with-andrew-mcafee
- More to the Story, 03/26/26
Source: Mother Jones
“Exclusive: Al Gore Slams Trump’s ‘Astonishing Mistake’ on Iran.” (03/26/26)
- The Headlines, 03/26/26
Source: New York Times
“A Landmark Verdict on the Danger of Social Media, and Trump’s Call to Punish ‘Rogue Judges.’” (03/26/26)
- Advisory Opinions, 03/26/26
Source: The Dispatch
“Mail-In Ballot Deadlines Challenged in Court.” (03/26/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/advisoryopinions/mail-in-ballot-deadlines-challenged-in-court/
- The Political Orphanage, 03/26/26
Source: The Political Orphanage
“What’s Prison Hooch Taste Like?” (03/26/26)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/whats-prison-hooch-taste-like
- Quillette Interview: Emily Schrader
Source: Quillette
“Iran’s Hidden War Against the West.” (03/26/26)
https://quillette.com/2026/03/26/irans-hidden-war-against-the-west-emily-schrader/
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 03/26/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Press Sec Goes Full Cult as New Leaks on War Humiliate Him Badly.” (03/26/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/208193/trump-press-sec-goes-full-cult-new-leaks-war-humiliate-badly
- Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 03/26/26
Source: Politico
“Trump’s headline headaches.” (03/26/26)
- Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 03/25/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Pentagon Quiet on Details on Potential Ground War, Iran Rejects US Proposal To End War, and More.” (03/25/26)